


Apologies through Barbed Wire

by InsominiacArrest



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Humor, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Reconciliation, character development I wanted to see in s4 lol, post-season four
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 01:43:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12354825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsominiacArrest/pseuds/InsominiacArrest
Summary: Matt has a dilemma: how do you apologize toa) the second hottest person you knowb) someone you can barely look in the eye as guilt gnaws at your insidesMatt goes to face Shiro over their shared past and his own lingering feelings of responsibility (post season 4)





	Apologies through Barbed Wire

How do you say you're sorry to the second hottest person you know?

How do you say you’re sorry to someone you still can’t muster up the courage to look in the eye?

How do you say you’re sorry.

When Matt was seven he accidentally flat ironed the cat’s tail and had to present it with all the good tuna fish in the house to get her to come near him again.

When Matt was nine he hid his father’s favorite pair of work gloves out in the shed as a joke, but then he really forgot where he put them. He spent almost a whole afternoon pretending to search for them until he just admitted they must be gone. He cried a little bit when his dad hugged him after it.

When Matt was fourteen he got bored in chemistry class and rallied the other kids to try to sneak ingredients to him until he had a working flash bomb. He had to apologize to ⅓ of the school’s staff and a very miffed classroom iguana.

Matt was twenty-three now. He had to apologize for something a lot worse.

His eye kept catching on the glint of it, the dark metal casing, the finely tuned handiwork. He closed his eyes and saw the thick white streak across the ridge of his head and angry webbed scar across the bridge of his nose.

How do you apologize to someone you transformed into someone else.

It didn’t help that Shiro was still Shiro, in fact, he seemed more Shiro than ever before. Incredibly Shiro, broad, tall, looking like he could press bench all 137 of Matt’s confused emotions.

Matt remembered when his dad joked with him after Holly Martinez decided to go on a different mission than Kerberos. His dad had clapped him on the back and said ‘look at this way son!’ He laughed ‘now you won’t get distracted by any pretty faces. Just you and me. And Shiro!’

Sure dad. No one could get distracted by Shiro, especially no one with eyes and basic sensory functions; Matt was only flesh and blood. And the flesh was weak.

And the guilt was worse. 

He smiled for Pidge, how could he not? Pidge was amazing, she did more than more, she was blooming- he was almost happy to see her reach some potential that earth might not even have helped satisfy.

He would be happy for Pidge. And her alien friends, and their cow. And he would admit, a castle was a much cooler place to spend his penance than in the empty tracking station of nowhere. 

Seeing Pidge was probably the first really good thing that happened to him after he fell all the way down the hole of ‘space ventures gone terribly wrong.’ Better, neater, friendly, tastier, the move was good. But ghosts are still ghosts, and Matt was looking at his.

His artificial fingertips hovering over control panel buttons, his weary eyes aged like heavy vats of wine, his smile tinged with something unsmoothed and creased, tight, different. Matt didn’t even know where to begin.

‘Sir,’ that’s what he said, that’s what he meant to say. ‘I’m sorry sir.’ It felt wrong, they were almost the same age, but what else do you say? ‘I fucked up sir. You got hurt sir. I’m a scared rabbit sir and you’re Shiro. Sir.’

A different Shiro would be laughing at him by the sheer number of phrases he went through in his head as he tried to face him.

Some just ended with ‘and if you can find it in your burly meaty chest to forgive me... Or slap me a little bit in retribution, that might make both of us feel better. Either one.’

Definitely laugh at him. Matt almost misses his isolated tracking station, penance, he could do penance.

But now he was seven years old again and looking at the scorched end of a cat’s tail.

The dull slash across his nose and cheek, the long swath of galra arm, the Shiro that was Shiro and something more. 

He spent the first couple nights twitching outside his door, telling himself he was out of bed to get a glass of water, telling himself he was there doing what he had to do. He looked at the rectangle shaped metal panel until his eyes went blurry.

He did this again and again for a little less than a week.

“Okay,” he took a deep breath, “okay.”  
  
It was the fifth night, some part of him knew that Shiro was too ‘understanding’ to ever bring it up. Matt could technically go along with the next couple decades of war planning and empire-dismantling and they would never have to bring it up.

Matt could go back to looking at him from afar and never meeting his eye again, as you do.

He keeps standing in front of Shiro’s bedroom door anyway.

Matt takes more even open-mouthed breathes, “Just, say it.” He egged himself on, “Say it! Offer yourself up plainly. Promise your old Xbox fifty-twenty to him. Tell him he looks nice in command, no, don’t say that. Tell him he has every right to be mad.” He snorts as he tries to imagine Shiro ever really that mad.

He shakes his head and paces outside the door back and forth, “Shiro, sir, no, Sir Shiro. Fuck, no. Look, I just,” he stumbles over his own words before even seeing him, “Thank you. I’m, I’m-” He grits his teeth and grunts in frustration.

He pulls out his hair and considers rounding the corner to see if that other kid was still up playing video games. Or if Pidge had a math problem with a lot of derivatives to focus on.

He waits. He doesn’t budge.

“Shiro,” he whispers, “Shiro, I need you to know…”  
  
_Swish_

“Ah!” Matt yells as the automatic door whooshes open in front of him and Matt jumps back from a groggy looking tall Japanese man.

“Matt?” Shiro rasps slowly and Matt considers becoming a chameleon and slipping away. Shiro rubs his eyes and stands up a little straighter and blinks, “I thought that was you.”  
  
Matt rubs the back of his head and tries not to concentrate on the fact that Shiro is in just a tank top in this empty cool hallway. Matt concentrates instead with great determination on the air above Shiro’s head.

“Lovely weather we’re having huh.” His voice cracks like he’s a teenager with a head cold. 

Shiro chuckles, “Come inside.” He steps to one side, “Let’s talk.”  
  
Matt’s palms immediately get moist and he has to rub them on his pants, his back muscles tense. He flipped to word over in his head a couple times, it was time to talk.

Matt forces his jelly legs to move and he creaks his way forward toward the entrance like he was a demon possessing his own reluctant body. Puppeting it along on unseen strings against a violent breeze against him.

When Matt was fifteen he had to apologize to his mom for using up all of the house’s hot water in a five-hour long shower. On the night of her defense. She had to go to her defense sweaty apparently.

When Matt was also still fifteen he had to give presents to everyone on the girl’s soccer team after sprinkling the soccer field with itching powder (it was a long story).

When he was seventeen he had to apologize to Pidge for forgetting about her birthday after he got caught up in school work.

When Matt was twenty-four.

He spends a long moment looking at Shiro was the other man settled down in the bed across from him, Matt holds himself perfectly still. He stood in a dim tidy room with his back to the wall and a good five feet apart from the other man.

Shiro observes him for a very long moment, something hangs in the air. A haunting, of how the old Shiro would tease Matt for loitering outside his door, or old Matt would undoubtedly call him ‘skunk man.’ 

Shiro gives a watery smile, “You wanted to tell me something.”  
  
Matt shifts from foot to foot, _he really does sound like a leader now_. He thinks it quietly.

Matt picks himself up one inch at a time and forces himself to look up, “You can have my xbox.” He blurts it out quickly and then cringes at himself.

“Your…?” Shiro raises an eyebrow.

“And my smoothies while we’re here,” Matt leans forward earnestly, “I would offer Pidge’s too but I think she would bite me.”  
  
“Matt, what are you talking about?” Shiro was sending him his concerned look.

“Or! Anything else, my baseball cap for the Mets you really liked. My Firefly poster signed by Nathan Fillion, my life savings.”  
  
“I don’t want any of those things?” Shiro looked ready to stand up and reach out to him.

“My body, in a servant way, sexual way, Ghostbusters way-”  
  
“Matt.”  
  
“Or like, I’ll invent you something. Hair dye even-”  
  
“Matt!” Shiro stood up in front of him and fixed with a very steady look, “What is this about?”  
  
Matt looked down at his shoes with forlorn, “I meant to say this more clearly. Earlier.”  
  
Shiro gives a low laugh, “That you wanted to give me your things?”  
  
Matt shook his head, he flicked his eyes up, focusing on Shiro’s face and then Shiro’s arm, “Shiro I’m…” He exhales, “I shot a man in the face.”  
  
Shiro’s mouth fell open, “Matt,” He seems to search him, “We’ve all done things out here we’re not proud of. If this is about-”  
  
“No,” Matt takes a deep breath, “It took me three days to do it after I found out he was torturing the other prisoner’s,” Matt’s was almost trembling, “Even after...after everything it took me all that time to actually do something.”  
  
Something feels like it’s clawing it’s way up through Matt’s stomach and through his spinal cord, weighing down heavily on his chest.

Shiro raised his hand up, “It’s a lot to ask of anyone.”

Matt’s eyes jerked up sharply, they stung in the dark, unknown pinpricks forming there. “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.” He chokes it out, “It’s my fault. It’s my fault.”  
  
“No-” Shiro walked toward him and Matt stepped back from him.

“You were brave and strong right away. If I had been...If I hadn’t been weak we could have come up with a plan together. They wouldn’t have kept throwing you into the ring-”  
  
“They were always going to throw me into the ring.”  
  
“I could have stopped them!” Matt vigorously rubs at his eyes, he couldn’t stop the overflow from soaking the cuffs of his shirt, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t-” He chokes, stepping forward momentarily. “I didn’t stop them.”

Shiro’s eyes were large, he was paused, a large silhouette of a man set on freeze. Matt could already see the reconciling words forming on his mouth, but Matt raised his hand up.

He lightly touches his cheek, brushing his thumb over the scarred skin, “You didn’t deserve it.”  
  
Shiro’s eyes look distant, “No one does. That’s why we’re here.”  
  
“No,” Matt clears his throat, “you didn’t. You didn’t.” He cups his chin, something unreadable was under the surface of Shiro’s expression, something almost afraid. “I was there. And they really hurt you.”

Shiro’s gaze flicks around the room, “We all make sacrifices.”  
  
“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Matt draws a little closer, “they’re evil bastards and we shouldn’t have to give up anything to see them burn. They just deserve it.”  
  
Shiro’s eyes go wide and he seems to process something slowly, and then his lips twitch up and starts to laugh. “Oh.” He gives another jerky laugh, “Oh!”

“What?”  
  
Shiro’s shoulders shake, “Nothing.” He tries to cover his mouth and chuckles, “It’s just nice to have you back.”  
  
Matt slowly, slowly wipes his eyes again and fixes him with a grin, “Well lord knows you need me.” He flicks his hair up, “you’re turning into an unfashionably skunk without me around.”  
  
Shiro makes a face, “You were never fashionable.”  
  
“Ou contraire.” He winks, “I was handsome and brilliant. All big muscles, and style, ya’ know?”  
  
Shiro laughs again and he’s holding his head, “I _really_ missed you.”  
  
Matt’s eyes soften and he puts his arms by his side, “I’m so glad you’re alive.” He heaves a sigh, “You saved me. And I can barely live with myself for them just having hurt you for it.”  
  
Shiro rolled his eyes, “What happened to them being evil bastards doing this? You didn’t hurt me Matt,” he wets his lips, “I know you would never do that.”  
  
Their eyes meet steadily and suddenly Matt’s pulse spikes, his brain does something terrible to his wits and he’s suddenly not thinking about his apology at all. He bites his lip and looks back down at his hands.

He shakes his head.

“You needed someone to save you and I was the only one there…” Matt’s voice croaks out his throat, he takes another step forward, “I’m never going to live that down.”  
  
Shiro puts his hand out, “Trust me. There’s a lot of things none of us are living down,” he takes a deep breath, “There’s a lot of things I regret Matt.”  
  
Matt tentatively grabs his hand, he squeezes it, “What? You already took Mr. Finney’s class with me, how could there be more things you regret then that.”  
  
Shiro chuckles, “I also accidentally agreed to smoke in the locker room with you freshman year. There’s that too.”  
  
Matt put a finger in the air, “That was for science! And maybe Kitt Wilson thinking I was cool.”  
  
Shiro rolls his eyes in a truly magical fashion, “Your efforts may be spent at better places than...being cool.”

Matt’s mouth fell open, “Hey! No leaderly kind phrases on me. I know you once puked green jello all over the dorm kitchen Halloween night.”  
  
Shiro really laughed now, he covered his mouth, “God, don’t remind me.”  
  
“Reminding you is what I’m here for.”

Shiro grins and he seems a little younger, less creased and waxed at the edges. “Good.”

He reaches gradually up, his right hand lifting through the air like a slow moving air balloon, it landed on the side of Matt’s cheek. Matt tries not to move, Shiro rubbed the at the wetness at the corner of his eye, clearing away the residual tears.  
  
“I’m very glad you’re alive too Matt.” He takes a deep breath, “I don’t think I could live with myself either.”  
  
Matt smiles up at him, “I’m s-”  
  
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry,” Shiro lifts up his left arm, “It was the Galra who did this to me and no one else.” 

Matt takes a deep breath in through his nose, “I won’t say it then.” He lifts his fist up, “Let’s just curb stomp them together.”  
  
Shiro leans down, his height becoming apparent as their foreheads almost touch. Matt holds his gaze for a very long moment, an unsaid history spread out in the air around them.

“Okay.”

Shiro pets his tear-stained cheek again and they stand like that for a very very long moment.


End file.
